A Kaern (singular) is a short, grey, human-like creature with large bat wings and bat-like features. Kaernaar (plural) live in well-concealed nomadic communities living in crevices deep beneath the earth. They wander subterranean waterways and tunnels, moving far throughout the world. A single Kaern could travel under an entire ocean in his lifetime, with enough days left to cross it again. Kaernaar live off of large (often massive) burrowing creatures, often raising herds of them for sustenance. Kaernaar are almost never seen above the ground, but may stumble upon the surface by accident. Few leave their underground lives, but occasionally one may wander out, driven by his natural curiosity. Kaernaar are also psionic creatures…

• Monstrous Humanoid: Kaernaar are not affected by spells or effects that affect only humanoids, such as Charm Person or Dominate Person.

• -2 Dexterity, -2 Charisma, +2 Wisdom.

• Small: As a Small creature, a Kaern gains a +1 size bonus to Armor Class, a +1 size bonus on attack rolls, and a +4 size bonus on Hide checks, but it uses smaller weapons than humans use, and its lifting and carrying limits are three-quarters of those of a Medium character.

• Base land speed for a Kaern is 20 feet/round.

• Gliding: Kaern have wings that allow them to fly with clumsy maneuverability for 15 feet/round. A Kaern can only glide for three rounds; after that, they must make a DC15 Fortitude save every round to continue gliding. If they do not land, they fall, taking the appropriate amount of falling damage (if any). Kaernaar cannot glide while wearing medium or heavier armor, or when carrying a heavy load.

A gliding Kaern cannot use his arms; his hands are on his wings.

Kaernaar do not wear sleeves, as sleeves prevent their wings from unfolding. If they do wear sleeves, they must be somewhat baggy to fit the arms, and the Kaern cannot glide while wearing that item.

• Naturally Psionic: Kaernaar gain 3 bonus power points at 1st level. This benefit does not grant them the ability to manifest powers unless they gain that ability through another source, such as levels in a psionic class.

• Limited Tremorsense: Kaernaar can sense vibrations in the ground out to 20 feet. They cannot use it to detect stationary objects, but they can pinpoint moving objects. Kaernaar can only use their tremorsense if they are touching the ground.

• Light Sensitivity (Ex): Kaernaar are dazzled in sunlight or within the radius of a daylight spell.

• Darkvision out to 60 feet.

• Low-Light Vision.

• Blindsight: Using acute echolocation, a Kaernaar can function as a sighted creature even when they cannot see. They cannot use this ability to read in the dark. A Kaern’s blindsight can be activated as a free action, but is disabled if the Kaern is deafened.

• Favored class: Ranger.

• Level Adjustment: +2

Detailed Description:

Kaernaar stand 4 feet tall and have dark grey skin. They lack fur, but have hair (in similar quantities) in every area that humans do, except that they do not grow chest or facial hair. Their eyes reflect light, glowing brightly whenever illuminated directly.

A Kaern’s wings fold to half their length (to the length of a halfling’s arm) when unused. The actual wings are quite human-esque in shape when folded, complete with hands and elbows, though the far half of their wing rests flat on their arm, extending to their elbows if held straight.

Their legs are muscular, with their ankles halfway up their shin area, so that they stand on the ends of their feet like a canine. The legs themselves are quite hairy, though they also lack fur.

Their teeth are very sharp and white, like a wolf’s. Though they share some similarities with bats, they eat meat rather than insects.

A Kaern’s ears are short, yet pointed, and are capable of picking up different frequencies than humanoids. As such, they can hear some things other races cannot, though their hearing is not more keen than a human’s; their hearing is not more sensitive, it is different. Kaernaar look relatively ugly to a human (though they return the sentiment), but somewhat attractive for something with their features.

Kaern tribes consist of one yurt-like tent per family, with an alpha male and an alpha female leading a large group of 15-20 herders and 10-15 hunters. Different tribes often greet each other with warmth when they meet, but soon separate to continue traveling.

Kaernaar have similar lifespans to a human.

Kaernaar wear somewhat tight, yet unrestricting, garments that consist of a sleeveless shirt and knee-length pants. These are usually grey, tan, or earthen-colored.

Jølly

2009-04-10, 10:04 PM

The -1 Charisma is abit odd...never seen a race that gave an odd number penalty/bonus. Oh well... :smalltongue:

Does the DC for gliding continue to rise with every round that you beat the Fort save? Maybe have it more like how a character can hold their breath for an equal amount of time equal to their Constitution score. 3 rounds plus constitution modifier? I'd toy around with that more but that's just me. :smallsmile:

Low-light vision seems a little off to me... :smallconfused:

Blindsight and tremorsense seem a little powerful. They do seem to fit this race though...can't really remember/think of a good alternative.

Now it's been a couple of years since I've even touched my books much less made/balanced anything so I might have misunderstood some things. I like the direction it's going but I feel that it will need a level adjustment. :smallsmile:

Also another thing...perhaps a reason is not needed but part of me just wants to see where this will lead. Why are they psionic?

Arachu

2009-04-10, 10:15 PM

I was thinking about adding a level adjustment, but, er... I'm not sure exactly what level to adjust with :smallredface:

As for psionics? I kind of started out thinking "I'm'll make a psionic race today"...

Also, with darkvision, you cannot see colors. I interpret it as seeing other spectrums of light (thermal, perhaps?) than the visible one. Low-light vision shows how sensitive their eyes are to visible light.

(Arachu refers to himself in 3rd person and hopes he didn't complicate things further...)

kopout

2009-04-10, 10:22 PM

Awesome! What's the LA? I'd say....+2 no expert though. If you want to lower it just add detriments.

Jølly

2009-04-10, 10:43 PM

I was thinking about adding a level adjustment, but, er... I'm not sure exactly what level to adjust with :smallredface:

As for psionics? I kind of started out thinking "I'm'll make a psionic race today"...

Also, with darkvision, you cannot see colors. I interpret it as seeing other spectrums of light (thermal, perhaps?) than the visible one. Low-light vision shows how sensitive their eyes are to visible light.

(Arachu refers to himself in 3rd person and hopes he didn't complicate things further...)

Well, a race that spends pretty much it's entire life underground doesn't really have a use for seeing light more sensitively. I can't think of any other underground race that has low-light vision...oh well. It's not really earth shattering or overpowered. Just a little thing. :smalltongue:

+2-3 level adjustment seems about right. :smallsmile:

Arachu

2009-04-10, 10:48 PM

Works for me :smallbiggrin:

On it.

EDIT: The whole low-light vision part relies on the premise that they use some light (torches, perhaps?), and thus their eyes still work. At that point, they'd either be blind (which gives me an idea for another race :smallcool:) or very sensitive to light. Which they are. I think...

Yeah, they totally are

RTGoodman

2009-04-10, 10:59 PM

First, I'd suggest changing the -1 Cha to the standard -2, if you want a Charisma penalty. All bonuses and penalties from races and magic items and stuff are even because of how ability modifiers work. A -2 penalty guarantees you'll have a modifier less than anyone without the penalty. (And Elf, for instance, can only have a +3, rather than +4, Con bonus at 1st level.) It's part of the balancing of ability score bonuses/penalties.

That said, with the -2 Cha, I'd be willing to call these guys around a LA +1 race. I mean, most of what they get is limited (blindsight and tremorsense, mediocre gliding) or just sucks outright (inability to wield weapons, can't wear most clothes or armor because of the "no sleeves" thing, etc.). Oh, and they've got light sensitivity.

Personally, I would give them full flight (average maneuverability, improving over time) right off the bat. (No pun intended. :smalltongue:) After that, it's up to you what to add, but right now they're pretty lackluster. Unless I'm missing something.

EDIT: Also, have you seen the Nycter race from (I think) MM3. They're bat-folk, but not psionic. You might could take a look at them for some ideas.

Chronos

2009-04-10, 11:12 PM

As it stands, they're a little weak for LA 2, but a little strong for LA 1. I'd either remove the Dex penalty (small things are usually high Dex) and upgrade them to full flight, for an LA 2, or downgrade the Blindsight to Blindsense for a LA 1.

The tremorsense is a bit odd... It doesn't do them any good while flying, and even when not flying, it's redundant with Blindsight/Blindsense.

Just giving them bonus power points isn't enough to make them psionic. Well, technically, it is, but it's kind of bland. Most naturally psionic creatures have some psi-like abilities, or some racial abilities which use power points (elan repletion and resilience, half-giant stomp, etc.).

And low-light vision and darkvision both is not unprecedented: Whisper gnomes (also primarily subterranean) have both.

Arachu

2009-04-10, 11:21 PM

They can use weapons, actually. They just have to sheath them to fly.

Yeah, I'll tweak the CHA penalty a bit...

As for armor, they'd have to special-order or remove the arms somehow. Clothing would just need a little 'adjustment' with a knife or sword. It's somewhat easy to handle if done carefully enough. I think...

The weak flying is meant to say that they mostly just glide over gaps and the like. One distinction between flight and gliding, is that flying involves physical motion, while gliding is kind of like coasting on air.

BlueWizard

2009-04-11, 02:24 PM

:smallcool::smallcool::smallcool:

Golden-Esque

2009-04-12, 01:03 AM

Making a race is all well and good, but the real question is "will anyone play your race"?

As a player, I can't say I'd want to play your race. Why? Well, for starters, I'm personally a disliker of races with a Level Adjustment. That's just me and it totally isn't true for everyone, but to be frank a lot of the perks to playing your race just really aren't vibrant, ya know?

Drow, for example, get insane Spell-Like abilities and insane Spell Restiance (if you go by the book. I used a nerf homebrew at LA +0 personally :P) for their Level Adjustment. One thing I don't like about your bats is that most of their powers revolve around sight. They have a LOT of sight-enhancing abilities.

Now, I like to be complicated, but here's what I would do if it was me.

Drops:
Drop Tremorsense. They're bats, not moles. In my opinion, a bat has no business determining things with vibrations. Plus your Tremorsense completely goes against the flying nature of the race.
Drop Nightvision. Did you stop to realize that Nightvision would allow the Batman to see farther then their Tremorsense would allow, making the ability useless unless the Batman was affected by a Blind Spell? Now, it sees silly to drop both abilities, but wait to see where I'm going.
Drop the Dexterity penalty. Ever watch a bat fly? Youtube it, they're incredible imo.
Drop Light Sensitiveness. I'll explain this in the additions.
Drop Favored Class: Ranger. You want them to be a Psionic race? Give them a Psionic Favored Class!

Additions:
Add Blindness. There we go. That would totally make this class interesting, in my opinion. Gives a new meaing to the phrase "blind as a bat".
Now, you're going to need to be creative for this one, but I would reccomend making a Psionic Feat or racial ability that allows the character to expend Power Points to create a Psionic Echolocation ability; sort of a mental sweep of the area. The Psionolocation or whatever could be unaffected by spells such as invisibility and have a bonus against Hide checks, but be unable to sense through or around objects. I think the addition of such an ability would be really cool. Give me some time to sleep on it and I'll brain storm so more ideas :P.
Give them full flying. Why not? It's fun stuff.
I'd add a few examples of special armor options that would allow the Batman to wear armor that was just as good as normal armor. Maybe an exotic armor or something?

There's some ideas, I'mma gonna bed . . . :smallsigh:

Chronos

2009-04-12, 08:06 PM

Now, you're going to need to be creative for this one, but I would reccomend making a Psionic Feat or racial ability that allows the character to expend Power Points to create a Psionic Echolocation ability; sort of a mental sweep of the area. The Psionolocation or whatever could be unaffected by spells such as invisibility and have a bonus against Hide checks, but be unable to sense through or around objects. I think the addition of such an ability would be really cool. Give me some time to sleep on it and I'll brain storm so more ideas :P.Touchsight (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/touchsight.htm) as a psi-like ability would work. If they're blind, though, they're going to be relying on that a lot, so you'd better give them a lot of uses of it, or even make it at will or continuous.